If you still have a 'landline' phone, what type is it?

Sep 9, 2012 2:47 PM

Just curious. By landline I'm including POTS as well as VOIP. Cable company, MagicJack, Vonage, OOMA, etc. There are many stories about people abandoning landlines in favor of cell phones, but I know a large number of people who still use 'home phones', just not attached in a traditional way. If you have an adapter to use a regular phone with your cell service at home, chime in with that as well. Secondary question, how do you like it? One would assume it works for you else you would switch, but are you happy with it, or just accept it to get away from the huge fees?

Top Answers

We seldom use our ancient Motorola cell phones; they're turned on only when we're away from the house. Consequently, we still keep a landline -- regular ol' standard AT&T line, teathered to a jack in the wall, which works even when the electricity is down, which is useful during hurricanes and other instances of severe weather. (We also have four wireless extensions attached to the same line, however.)

Last spring the landline went down for almost two weeks (for the first time in 20 years or so), and we both hated the hassle of having to keep cell phones on, near to hand, and charged at all times. We know we'll eventually have to give in and get smart phones, which we'd both enjoy but don't want to pay for, but for now we're quite happy with our current dumb phones, a land line, and the collection of tablets, netbooks, laptops, and desktops that we use.

Have a land-line; probably always will. Not fond of cells. Do have a Virgin pay-as-you-use cell. It's for 'emergencies' when I'm in my car. Seldom used.

Within the last year I changed my land-line from the local tel-co (Century Link) to cable (Brighthouse) w/a package deal. Had Century Link for land-line & internet service. The package deal saved me $20 a month inc. cable TV. In addition I get free long distance, and a faster net connection. Am VERY happy I did this. More for less money. The service is better, too. Had recurring problems w/the land-line before.

Companies that provide land-lines are losing customers & are in a bit of trouble. They are trying very hard to save the internet (ISP) connections, but can't compete. :-/

I still have a land line. I briefly went without, when I retired, but (at the time) had three cell phones (don't ask), and that was enough to make me insane. I hate any and all phones.

When I got rid of a work cell, and brought the number of cell phones down to two, I realized that I still missed having an actual phone, and had one installed. I switched the phone line to the cable company, and was reminded instantly that while I might be willing to be annoyed by the cable being out now and then, having that happen to my phone was unacceptable. To cement my discontent, Charter PUBLISHED my unlisted, unpublished phone number.

They were so kind as to apologize, and offered to switch my number to a new one, for free. I told them not to bother. I had the real phone company come out, cut the cable line, replace the phone lines (which were cut to switch to cable), and then began the laborious process of removing my now public information from everywhere...

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We seldom use our ancient Motorola cell phones; they're turned on only when we're away from the house. Consequently, we still keep a landline -- regular ol' standard AT&T line, teathered to a jack in the wall, which works even when the electricity is down, which is useful during hurricanes and other instances of severe weather. (We also have four wireless extensions attached to the same line, however.)

Last spring the landline went down for almost two weeks (for the first time in 20 years or so), and we both hated the hassle of having to keep cell phones on, near to hand, and charged at all times. We know we'll eventually have to give in and get smart phones, which we'd both enjoy but don't want to pay for, but for now we're quite happy with our current dumb phones, a land line, and the collection of tablets, netbooks, laptops, and desktops that we use.

I started using Ooma last year and I'm really happy with it. It costs under $4 per month where I used to spend over $40. I kept the land line because most people know me by that number and I have a monitored security system.

Have a land-line; probably always will. Not fond of cells. Do have a Virgin pay-as-you-use cell. It's for 'emergencies' when I'm in my car. Seldom used.

Within the last year I changed my land-line from the local tel-co (Century Link) to cable (Brighthouse) w/a package deal. Had Century Link for land-line & internet service. The package deal saved me $20 a month inc. cable TV. In addition I get free long distance, and a faster net connection. Am VERY happy I did this. More for less money. The service is better, too. Had recurring problems w/the land-line before.

Companies that provide land-lines are losing customers & are in a bit of trouble. They are trying very hard to save the internet (ISP) connections, but can't compete. :-/

I still have a land line. I briefly went without, when I retired, but (at the time) had three cell phones (don't ask), and that was enough to make me insane. I hate any and all phones.

When I got rid of a work cell, and brought the number of cell phones down to two, I realized that I still missed having an actual phone, and had one installed. I switched the phone line to the cable company, and was reminded instantly that while I might be willing to be annoyed by the cable being out now and then, having that happen to my phone was unacceptable. To cement my discontent, Charter PUBLISHED my unlisted, unpublished phone number.

They were so kind as to apologize, and offered to switch my number to a new one, for free. I told them not to bother. I had the real phone company come out, cut the cable line, replace the phone lines (which were cut to switch to cable), and then began the laborious process of removing my now public information from everywhere...

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I am grateful that I had the technical sophistication to know how to do that, and who to contact at each of the search places where my information had gone public, but it was very disturbing to realize that it was out there. There will always be older printed phone directories with my name and address in them. If I had someone dangerous out there, my only recourse would be to move.

Oh, well.

Currently I have two phones, one near the computer that has a speaker (and a hold button, and caller ID, and other fancy features). The other is upstairs, and I spent some time searching for that type. It has no special features. It's a princess style phone, and I bought three when I found it (they were $10).

I get (and make) very few calls, but find it very convenient for those rare business calls. I don't have to wait on hold; when a person comes on the line, I can pick up the receiver. I mostly use the cell phone for SMS. Did I say I hate phones? I do.

I have had vonage for probably 5 years. I occasionally have issues where the modem needs to be reset for one reason or another, but other than that no issues. I have been considering going to Ooma for a while, but haven't made the switch yet. My husband keeps saying to just get rid of it, but he uses it all time to get business calls (he works from home) and I like to be able to give people a number that is not my cell number.

I have a traditional AT&T landline. I live alone and I'm just not comfortable not having one. If something happens I like to know that I only have to crawl so far to get to a phone. I have a couple of cordless phones scattered throughout the house but have two wired phones, on by my bed and another in the office at the other end of the house. So I've got a phone even if the power is out. I have a Tracfone pay as you go phone that I use when I travel and have for emergencies, but I don't use it much.

So far it looks like the death of the traditional landline is slightly exaggerated. Myself, I 'cut the cord' years ago, but maintained the phone itself. When I figured out I was paying $40+/month to get telemarketing calls and bill collectors looking for the person who previously had the number, I took that $40 and got myself a MagicJack. They have some serious customer service issues, so I downloaded a program that lets me still use the device, but with my Google Voice number. Honestly I'm to the point where I'm trying to justify even that yet for some reason I still hang on. I know a few people who are the same way...they told AT&T where to stick it, and yet kept the phone, they just connect via other methods, so I was curious how widespread that is.

Also have had Vonage for 5 years, took me a year to convince the spouse to switch, and next I want Ooma, then nothing. I has a plan...
Just got new cordless phones that are Bluetooth capable, so(other than texting) no more scrambling to find the cell phones when they ring. $25 more than regular cordless & well worth it so far. And, they'll work with NO landline too, so they figure in the long term plan.

I run a VoIP company, so the phones around the house and office are all VoIP. I have a few Snom desk phones for the office (they are what desk phones SHOULD be like), and I have some Uniden cordless phones and a Siemens Gigaset phone (a wifi handheld cordless VoIP phone) around the house because I like to move about, and desk phones, while cool, are less than mobile.

I know a LOT of people prefer only their cell phones, but being in the phone biz, and having to be ON the phone a good bit, the quality of cell phones is just painful to me. Lots of VoIP phones offer high bitrate codecs for audio quality that's absolutely phenomenal (better than the old landline phone quality). But even regular landline-type bit rates blow a cell phone away in audio quality. Cell phones have to overly compress their audio in order to send it all over mobile networks (which are pretty slow), and it's really TERRIBLE. Can't stand it. Far too many "what did you say?" moments trying to decipher it all.

We have a very similar setup as @magic cave . We have two Razrs that are mostly used when away from the house, and a landline with four cordless handsets. A landline is exactly that......something that you can depend on in an emergency. I pay $23 per month for mine....I look at it as insurance.

Have a landline through my phone company. The voice quality is excellent, no dropped calls, no breaking up. Went through the remnants of hurricane Ike a few years ago where people were without electric for days. In my area, the telephone lines were unscathed so we had phone service. And I just like the feel of the handset better.

I don't like their service anymore, but I am too lazy to port my number to a new service yet.

I have that line routed into a computer-based PBX system running the free software, Asterisk. When someone calls in, they get a recorded greeting where they can press '1' for me, or '2' for my wife. This lights up our Caller ID and rings our phone and tells us who the call is for. If the intended callee isn't home it can go to voicemail and the other person doesn't have to answer.

We can each make phone calls at the same time because each phone in our home is set up as an independent dialtone, though we can 'transfer' a call to a different phone.

When we get a voicemail at home, we get a text message to our mobile phones with the caller name and length of the message. We can either listen from the iPod Touch, a web browser, or call-in.

We have phone without power, too, because we set up a battery backup on it.

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